


To serve the self-crowned King

by MadeItUp



Series: To serve the self-crowned King [1]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Diverges from end of season 1, Hand Job, Jim and Lee broke up, M/M, No cheating, Porn With Plot, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Smut, gobblepot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 23:15:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20938373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadeItUp/pseuds/MadeItUp
Summary: Without anyone to wrangle with for power, Penguin needs something to keep himself entertained. Something Jim Gordon can only do once he's re-instated as a detective - such a shame he looks so good in a uniform...Cue some conflicted feelings about what Oswald Cobblepot really wants Jim Gordon to do for him.





	To serve the self-crowned King

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic and I'm not sure if it's mature or explicit? Either way, this started without any intention to post and then I had too much fun. Hope it's OK!
> 
> I hope to write more (there are best-laid plans) but it may be slow to get here.

Oswald Cobblepot, Penguin, King of Gotham was growing bored. Butch was useful. Sweet, even, if Oswald wanted him to be. But having a puppet to play with wasn’t as much fun as having a real boy…

The smile his own joke prompted cooled abruptly. What was the point of being funny if no one was there to laugh?

Oswald scanned the room looking for something to brutalise - he’d stabbed one disappointing conversationalist earlier, left the corpse lying on the hearth, the blood congealing on the marble. Stabbing him again wouldn’t be half as rewarding.

“Butch!” Oswald didn’t give him long enough to respond before screaming out again, “_Butch!_”

“Yes, boss.” Butch was already through the door. Ready to help.

“Clear this up.” Oswald nudged the dead body with the toe of his shoe. Drops of blood had settled on the leather, the firelight turning each spot to a gleaming garnet - blood on his shoes, his shirt, blood everywhere and none of it bringing any satisfaction. Sighing, Oswald inspected the stains on his shirt and suit. He’d have to get Butch to sort it using the conventional type of laundering service…

“What’s so funny?” Butch asked, hooking his hands under the shoulders of the body, ready to drag it away.

“Nothing you would understand.” It was cruel and waspish and entirely uncalled for. Butch was simple but he wasn’t stupid. Or… hadn’t been until Victor tinkered with his mind. Penguin rested his chin on his fist and stared at the scar on the side of Butch’s skull, enjoying the unease his scrutiny brought, seeing sweat bead on the skin and drift down the big man’s cheek.

Power was addictive.

And lonely.

Oswald wanted to sharpen the blade of his wit against a worthy opponent rather than dulling a knife with the blood of someone stupid enough to get in his way. Running every underhand scheme in the city without anyone trying to stop him was tedious. This must be why Falcone never crushed Maroni. Rather than pushing Fish off the roof, Oswald would have been better letting her live so he could torture her a thousand times over by outsmarting her every move. Useful as he was, he almost regretted what Zsaz did to Butch… almost. 

With no one to wrangle for control over the business side of the city, his thoughts turned to those whose job it was to stop such business getting done.

Things had grown quiet on that front too. No Detective Gordon bursting in without an invitation to accuse him of whatever scheme was afoot, to beg a favour to keep him skirting along the right side of the line Oswald had crossed without a second thought. 

How? It wasn’t like there weren’t any murders to investigate or bodies to discover. His people had been to visit the over-zealous manager of the laundry in Chinatown, and a few days before he’d slit a row of throats and kicked the bodies into Gotham River that surely would have washed up by now… Did he had to leave them hanging from the traffic lights to get a little attention from the GCPD these days? Or was Detective Gordon getting better at controlling his urge to take a shortcut to justice via words from a little bird? Either way, Oswald didn’t like it. He needed to be needed - someone to enrage, someone to thwart, someone to beg a favour. Power should have a purpose, give you collateral to bargain with, but no one was asking him for anything.

When Butch returned, Penguin gestured impatiently for him to take a seat.

“Where’s Detective Gordon?”

“How should I know?” Butch reached forward to fill his glass from the decanter and Oswald slid it just out of reach. Butch sighed and gave him a resigned look. “I don’t know where he is. Would you like me to find out?”

Oswald twisted the base of the crystal container back and forth on the table, watching the sunlight fracture in the swirl of whisky inside. If Butch couldn’t give him the answer immediately, maybe it was a good enough excuse to go looking…

“I’ll pay him a visit.” He poured Butch a generous measure and watched him knock it back. “You can take my clothes down to Yun Li’s to get cleaned.”

When Butch wilted at the name of the laundry, Oswald smiled, cold and cruel and contented. Yun Li’s laundry might be motivated to do a really good job after Butch’s last visit.

xxx

Apparently a GCPD salary didn’t go very far when it came to real estate. Oswald much preferred the ostentation of Barbara’s penthouse in the clock tower, or even the homeyness of the apartment building the Medical Examiner lived in. Shame about that one. Had Oswald ever cared to gamble on human emotion, he’d have said those two were in love. But Jim Gordon was the kind of man to sabotage his own life for the sake of… his job? Pride? A conscience? 

What a waste of time one of those was. Worse than useless in a city like Gotham.

A city that spoke to Oswald’s very soul.

No lift. No surprise. Apparently Jim lived on the third floor and Oswald made it past doors that did little to mask the lives beyond. The shouts of children, arguments, someone sobbing . Not so different from the building where he’d settled with his mother. He really should pay her a visit. Show her how well her son was doing, let her cook for him. Let her love him. She was, after all, the only person he could tolerate it from.

When he reached Jim’s door, Oswald stood there a moment, studying the line of the corridor, counting the doors, learning the lie of the land. Quick exits weren’t an option he liked to take, but it was good to know where they were nonetheless. One moment more to smooth his suit and check his hair was… well, as it should be.

And then he knocked. Two crisp raps on the wood before he stepped back, hands behind his back, a perfectly constructed smile on his face as he stared directly into the peephole. 

He sensed the movement behind the door and watched as Jim swung it wide with a resigned.

“Penguin.”

“Hello, Jim. May I?” He stepped forward, forcing the invitation.

Inside was no less dingy than the corridor. One room encompassed kitchen, breakfast table and sitting room, a wall masking where the bedroom was. Oswald feigned a casual glance, taking everything in and filing it away for consideration - how there weren’t any pictures, nothing too personal on display and that the most expensive item he could see was the bottle of whisky on the kitchen table. Oswald suppressed a sneer at the thought of living a life where one sipped good whisky from cheap mugs. 

“And you’re in my apartment because…?” Jim leaned back on the door he’d just closed.

Oswald did one, singular sweep of his outfit. He’d found his answer already.

“Detective -”

“Officer,” Jim corrected him.

“Office Gordon.” Oswald gave a contrite nod, lips pursed in a smirk as he allowed himself a more leisurely appraisal of Jim’s uniform. The precision of the crease in his black trousers and the shine on the leather of his boots - GCPD collar pins matching the silver of the badge pinned above his chest pocket. A pressed shirt a shade paler than Jim’s eyes. “Blue suits you.”

Jim curled his lip at the compliment.

“Did you come here to mock me, or was there some crime you wanted to report - a body that’s about to turn up, or a deal that might end in half the city getting gunned down?”

“Isn’t a parking ticket more your level?”

Jim pushed away from the door, closing the distance between them in a step that had Oswald take a hasty shuffle back into a set of bookshelves. But Jim didn’t touch him, just leaned close enough that each breath felt like a threat as he pointed a finger at Oswald’s face.

“Don’t test me.” 

“Lost none of your composure, I see,” Oswald raised his eyebrows and felt a perverse sort of glee rise with them. 

For a moment Jim ground his teeth before he lowered his hand and stepped back, giving Oswald the chance to right himself, twisting his right a little further out, letting his left hold more of his weight. A move that didn’t go unnoticed by Jim, who watched him with a steady gaze as if he wasn’t used to seeing Oswald as anything more than the notorious Penguin.

_Notorious_ a word Oswald liked to think applied. One he could beat anyone who doubted him into thinking.

Although not a man like Jim Gordon, no… he wasn’t someone to beat into submission. Jim was someone to weave a web of favors around, forcing his hand and guiding him to where you wanted him.

“Actually,” Oswald, tucked his hands behind his back and took a measured step forward. “I came here to find out if you were still alive. You’ve not been kicking down my door and demanding favors for quite some time.”

Jim leaned on the back of his sofa and crossed his arms. “And someone in your position couldn’t just ask…”

Oswald shook his head, lips pinched in a condescending smile. “Oh no, I don’t think that’s appropriate, do you? I wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea about our friendship.”

When Jim raised his eyebrows, Oswald expected him to clarify exactly what his idea of it was, but Jim never offered words if he had a head cool enough for silence. It seemed he had gained a little of that missing composure. Which Oswald saw as a challenge.

“Anyway…” Oswald gestured at the uniform. “I see now that you’ve been demeaned, I mean _demoted_, you’re not going to be looking too hard at Gotham’s darker deeds.”

“Get to the point so I can get to work.” That _growl_. 

“What I’m suggesting is that I get you reinstated as a detective and Gotham can become fun again.”

Jim’s cheek twitched, but his gaze remained fixed, the less-exercised muscles of his mind stretching into action. After a couple of seconds consideration, he sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. “Alvarez let a trail go cold on that Chinese laundry massacre last week…”

“Oh, that was one of mine,” Oswald smiled sweetly, enjoying Jim’s angry little, “_Of course it was_.”

“So you see how disappointing it is for me,” Oswald laid a hand on his own chest, “when I do something that deserves a little attention and there’s no one there to see it.”

“You make it sound like you’d stop if there wasn’t an audience.”

“What can I say? I’m a showman.” Oswald shrugged. “So. Do we have a deal?”

Jim tipped his head to the side and this time it felt like Oswald was the one being dissected. A most uncomfortable sensation when it was Jim Gordon at the other end of the operation. That stern, steady gaze and the implacable expression Oswald so rarely got to see. Their encounters were usually more heated. But this was cold and cool, because it was a deal brought forward by him, not Gordon. He was the one who wanted something enough to offer this very specific favor. 

A conclusion that Jim had reached too, it seemed.

“What’s in this for you? I’m not buying all this fun bullshit. Helping me get re-instated won’t stop me pursuing you -”

“I certainly hope not.” That came out breathier than it should have done and Jim’s eyes flared a fraction wider.

“- and I’m not currying favors with mobsters these days.”

“Please. _Mobster_.” Oswald rolled his eyes, before pinning Jim with a steel-strong gaze. “Don’t you know I’m the King of Gotham now?”

But Jim just smirked and shook his head and Oswald felt that irrepressible urge to lash out, to hurt, to beat another person’s will until it took the shape of his own. _You don’t beat a man like this into submission_… The only way was to outwit him. One day Penguin would have Jim Gordon on his knees and the name on his lips would Oswald’s and his title would be King. 

A pleasure that was surely worth the wait.

Oswald stretched his left arm out, tugged on the cuff of his shirt, twisting it so the cufflink gleamed in the thin light falling through the window.

“Maybe this once I won’t ask for anything in return,” Oswald said, keeping his voice casual and not looking up. “No favors. Just a gift, for a friend.”

“We’re not friends, Penguin.”

“So you’d prefer to owe me?” He arched a brow and watched with pleasure as Jim pressed his lips together rather than risk rushing in with an answer. “I thought not.”

He tensed as Jim made to move across the room, but all he did was reach for the door and pull it open. “I’ll thank you for the gift when I get it. But for real, there’s a beat cop out there waiting for me to relieve them of their duty. So if you don’t mind…”

Jim gestured out into the hall, a perfect cop-directing-traffic motion. Teasing was irresistible. 

“So authoritative,” Oswald murmured as he passed casting a glance down Jim’s uniform. “Do they let you keep that thing or do you have to hand it over once you’re plain clothes?”

Jim tutted, humour coaxing his lips into a rueful smile, “Given how often they keep bouncing me back onto the beat, think I’ll be keeping it.”

For just a moment, Oswald let his gaze linger on the sight of Jim Gordon in uniform. The gun and cuffs on his belt, the trim lines of his shirt. Mind already on how to get Jim out of it, Oswald turned for the stairs and left.

xxx

The fastest way to get Jim re-instated was to take a different detective out of the game. While accidents were easily engineered, Oswald wasn’t so sure Jim would appreciate a gift that came at the cost of a colleague’s good health. Better to reveal a little corruption that couldn’t be tolerated, generate a persuasive reason to leave town, do a little headhunting for someone looking for better pay and less responsibility. Tactics that bore fruit within the week - life moved fast in a city where people anticipated death behind every door.

When Oswald heard confirmation of Jim’s reinstatement, he relaxed into the high back of his chair and steepled his fingers with a self-satisfied smirk. 

Now the fun could begin. 

“Butch…”

Before he’d heard more than his name, Butch’s expression shifted from vacant to interested, the smile that started to emerge an echo of Oswald’s. An expression that preceded all the best schemes. 

“I think it’s time we opened negotiations with a certain bar that seems to be getting a little too complacent about its profit margin, don’t you?”

“Turn the heat up?” Butch said.

“_Exactly_.”

Business was concluded swiftly enough - they’d had everything lined up for weeks, waiting for the right moment to strike. Later that night, when Oswald finally came down from the rush that followed a particularly bold move, he stood at the window of his room, the king surveying his kingdom and wondered just how long it would take for Jim to come calling…

He barely had to wait beyond dawn. 

Not a call, but a message, waiting on his phone from the contact he’d saved as Baptist.

_We need to talk._

Oswald settled back into his pillows, amused.

_Why so brusque?_

But Jim provided no explanation, just an instruction: _Come to my apartment._

Oswald considered his answer. Could be a trap. It wasn’t as if he’d come running had Jim told him to go down to the station. But an invitation to Jim’s apartment wasn’t something to be passed up lightly considering the lacklustre welcome he’d received previously.

_I shall be there once I’ve concluded the morning’s business._

_Be here as soon as you can or don’t bother._

Something unknown fluttered in Oswald’s chest. A feverish tremor of excitement that had no place in this exchange. 

_How can I refuse such a polite request?_

_I have no intention of being polite._

_I was being sarcastic, Detective._

_Get here now._

Oswald stared at the screen and swallowed. All of this should worry him. He’d no idea what Jim was playing at - going in cold was a risk rarely worth taking, but that ‘now’ was alluring. Oswald threw the covers back and made for the wardrobe.

He got a low-level grunt to drive him. Someone who wouldn’t question where they were going the way Butch or Gabe would. Neither liked letting him out of their sight and he appreciated the concern. Or rather, he appreciated what it meant: that he was worth more to them alive. But Jim Gordon wasn’t a threat. You don’t spare someone’s life once just to snatch it back the next time you were alone. 

Besides. They’d already been alone. Oswald had survived that, hadn’t he?

Nevertheless, he touched his hands to the weapons he carried before telling his driver to drop him a block from Jim’s apartment. One could never be too careful.

He made short work of the stairs. Knowing it wouldn’t do to look too eager, Oswald paused long enough to catch his breath before raising a hand to knock on the unremarkable grey door. He heard Jim approach on the other side before the latch clicked and the door drew open, wide enough to invite him inside without a word.

Senses on high alert, Oswald crossed the threshold, eyes darting to the corners of the apartment, half expecting a load of GCPD to pour forth and capture him. 

But there was no one in Jim’s apartment other than the man pushing the door shut behind him and sliding the chain across. Oswald turned to face him, the two of them looking at each other for a long, even moment.

Jim Gordon was not dressed for a casual conversation; nor in the typical two-piece that befitted a detective. He was, once more, in the blue shirt and black trousers of a beat cop.

“Some kind of undercover work, perhaps, Detective Gordon?”

The taunt was barely out before Jim was on him, overpowering him in a single, swift step, twisting him round and smacking his head against the wall hard enough for stars to sparkle briefly across Oswald’s vision. One arm was twisted painfully high up his back, forced there by Jim’s grip, the other held hard against the wall, Jim’s heavier weight pressed full against him, crushing the breath from Oswald’s lungs. He could feel Jim’s chest heaving against his back - although the strength needed to overpower him could hardly have been an exertion - and there was the pressure of his forehead against the side of Oswald’s skull, pushing his head to the side, neck at full stretch as Jim pressed his mouth close to Oswald’s ear.

“You think you’re the only person who can figure out what people want?” Oswald swallowed and Jim’s breath blew hot in his ear. “Because I can read a person too, Penguin, when they open themselves up and read themselves out loud like a fucking bedtime story.”

“I don’t-”

“You said _blue suits you - do you get to keep the uniform_ \- and do you know what I heard?”

“No,” Oswald whispered into the wall. He didn’t know what Jim thought he’d been saying. 

“I heard that you want to fuck.” The stress he put on the word _fuck_ melted every nerve in Oswald’s body. “You just haven’t been specific on the how, Penguin…”

“Don’t call me that,” Oswald whispered, hitting the bottom of a slippery little descent from wanting this man to bow down before him to wanting Jim to _own_ him.

“Oswald Cobblepot,” Jim’s tone took on the same authority as it had on too many other occasions. “You have the right to remain silent -”

The hand on his back slipped down and there came the unmistakable click of handcuffs being released from his belt.

“No!” Oswald squirmed in protest, his fear genuine. “No cuffs.”

Jim stilled a moment and there came the clatter of the cuffs falling onto the apartment floor and a low, near-gentle murmur, “No cuffs…”

“I’ll come quietly.” 

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Oswald.” 

Oswald squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of his name on Jim’s lips, then the feel of those lips dragging at the skin of his ear.

“Put your hands on the wall where I can see them.”

As Jim released him, Oswald did as he was told, palms flat against the paintwork, taking the opportunity to adjust his stance a little, widening his legs to ease the strain on the right. There came an appreciative hum from behind and Oswald felt faint with the implication. For someone so used to forethought, to being prepared for any situation, this feeling of uncertainty was equally terrifying and thrilling.

Jim stepped close once more.

“I’m just going to check for weapons.”

This might all be for play (was it? It had better be…) but any cop in their right mind really _should_ check him over for such things. Jim started with his right leg, gentle fingers running up under the hem of his trouser leg, tucking themselves into the elastic of his sock and slowly running around the skin of his ankle - and the top of the little leather sheath that housed the smallest of his blades until he found the buckle. Fingertips brushed skin as Jim fumbled the catch, index finger trailing a little line against the grain of leg hair before the sheath dropped to the floor.

“One…” The timbre of Jim’s voice had all the moisture evaporate from Oswald’s throat. Or maybe it was the hands, pressing firmly around the material, moulding themselves to the twisted muscles of his calf. He didn’t like people touching this leg - not that anyone ever offered - but apparently Jim Gordon could touch him anywhere and get away with it. Especially if he kept using that infuriatingly slow, sure grip as his hands edged up past Oswald’s knee, around his thigh, fingers of his left hand sliding up towards where thigh became something else…

Jim’s right hand slid it into his trouser pocket and freed a vicious little knuckle duster, small and slender enough to sit against his thigh.

“Two,” Jim said, his voice accompanied by the clunk of metal on the wooden boards of the apartment floor.

He was crouching behind Oswald as he ran his hands carefully across his ass cheeks, fingers dipping into his back pockets - a garrotte in one, a chloroformed handkerchief in the other, each extracted with that maddeningly slow count. “…three… four… we’re not even halfway, are we?”

Oswald shook his head, throat too dry to speak as he swallowed.

“Five…” Jim slipped Oswald’s favourite snubnose revolver from his other pocket. He was more of a knife man, but a distance weapon could still come in handy.

His grip was firmer as he ran his hands down Oswald’s stronger leg, confident he couldn’t hurt him and that attention had a groan building in Oswald’s throat every bit as much as the feel of Jim’s fingers lifting the material of his trousers, slipping the switchblade from his sock.

“Six. Jesus, Penguin, how prepared are you?”

“You tell me.” Oswald managed to keep his voice even, forehead pressed into the wall to steady himself as his pulse hammered an erratic rhythm of fear and desire. “You’re the boy scout.”

The fingers on his calf tightened around the muscle, thumb massaging a firm circle into his flesh. “That didn’t sound like a compliment.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Careful, or I’ll say you resisted arrest.” 

Jim stood and Oswald risked a look over his shoulder, gaze flinting off Jim’s. An invitation that Jim took to draw in, hand running up Oswald’s neck, thumb hooked under his jaw as he held him there, head half turned. Oswald’s breath came in short, sharp bursts that flared his nostrils and did little to draw any oxygen into his body. His gaze flickered down from Jim’s eyes to his mouth, that lower lip begging for someone to run a tongue across it, maybe sink a bite into the flesh until Jim was the one squirming.

Jim brought his face close - so close - nose brushing gently against Oswald’s, lips so near that Oswald opened his mouth in anticipation…

“Not yet,” Jim whispered, releasing him.

When his hands returned to Oswald’s body it was to run across his stomach - almost the only stretch of his torso without a weapon strapped to it - and was he imagining it, or was Jim running his hands back for a second feel, fingers splaying as if to caress as much of Oswald as possible? Then his hands were checking the bulges in each and every pocket of Oswald’s jacket. 

“Seven, eight, nine, ten… I think we’ll just take this off. You may step back from the wall.”

Oswald did as he was told, lowering his arms so that his jacket could be shucked from his body, falling to the ground in a heap that had him itching to bend over and get it, dust off the dirt and hang it up. But even as he tensed, Jim let out a warning, “Don’t even think about it. Hands back on the wall.”

“Unlike you I actually get my clothes tailored…”

“I thought you were going to come quietly?” Jim slipped the knife from the waistband of Oswald’s trousers, with a murmured, “Eleven.”

“And you told me not to make promises I can’t keep.”

“This wasn’t the part where I was anticipating the problem,” Jim said, hands running firmly down his arms, until his fingers were wrapped round Oswald’s wrists, chest pressed against his back, hips indecently hard against his ass, Jim’s whole body covering him. 

He couldn’t help it. This was too much and he arched his back into Jim, slowly moving against him, feeling the scrape of his belt buckle and wondering of the promise beneath.

Jim’s grip tightened on his wrists, the ends of his fingers digging into the tender flesh between his tendons, hard, then harder, forcing a whimper from Oswald’s lips.

“Not. Yet.”

He rested his forehead against the back of Oswald’s head, breath huffing down his spine and into the collar of his shirt. Even the feel of that, of something as basic as _breathing_, pushed Oswald closer and closer to an impossible edge of need. He couldn’t stay still but for his palms pressing desperately into the wall as if that was the only way to anchor him as he writhed beneath the pressure of Jim’s weight, the thought of what it looked like for an officer in uniform to have him pinned here like that.

“Look at you…” Jim whispered into his neck. “I thought I was the one who had a problem with composure.”

Oswald panted and squirmed and wondered what the hell he had to do to get Jim Gordon to _touch_ him. Not on the wrist or the leg, not through layers of clothing, but…

“_Ah -_” The sound burst out of him as Jim ran a hand firmly down the front of his trousers, feeling the strain against the material, rubbing down once, then back up, hand gripping the belt buckle and teasing it open.

“This feels suspicious.” He could hear the smile in Jim’s voice and a small, slightly hysterical chuckle hissed through his own teeth before it turned into a sigh as he felt fingers on his zipper and then Jim’s hand was inside his pants, against the silk of his boxer shorts. There came a growl of impatience and his other hand came down to tug the waistband out and down, cool air hitting hot skin that hungered for more.

“Best be thorough,” Jim said again, left hand holding Oswald’s hip in a grip that broached no protest, the other hand rubbing through coarse dark hair, then down and under…

“_Jim…_” 

Jim’s hand stilled where it was, thumb resting lightly at the base, fingers soft against his scrotum. He leaned and took the lobe of Oswald’s ear into his mouth, sucking on the soft flesh, before there came the pressure of his teeth holding it in place so the tip of his tongue could flutter across the edge.

Oswald couldn’t stop his breath coming out in a low, urgent moan of desire, the swirl of Jim’s tongue rippling through his whole body. How was it possible to feel that at the base of his spine, the tip of his cock? The only part of him Jim was sucking was his ear.

“Fuck.” A curse bitten out between teeth that Oswald was grinding into dust.

Jim released his hold on Oswald’s ear. “Was that a request?” 

“It’s anything you want.” Oswald heard the tremble in his voice.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Jim said, as his hand wrapped round Oswald properly, gripping hard enough for him to feel it, soft enough to take him in one long stroke up, thumb flicking salaciously over the tip, fingers massaging beneath the head before drawing back down. Not the way he touched himself. Oswald tried to keep half a mind on the movement, gaze lowered to appreciate the sight of Jim’s thick, strong fingers, nails bitten low, the pale skin on the inside of his wrist, the stiff blue cuff of his police officer’s uniform.

Those fingers squeezed a little harder, demanding attention and Oswald tensed, breath rushing out through his nose, mouth clamped so tight his jaw ached.

“This good?” Jim whispered, doubt creeping into the edges of his words.

Oswald nodded, fast, tight little dips of his chin. _So good._

“You don’t have to stay quiet, you know…”

But he did. This was how it was for him. Squashing, suppressing, holding back and back and back because getting what you wanted was so much better when it wasn’t just allowed to happen. When your fought against it. A gasp escaped when Jim twisted his wrist in a flick as his fingers knuckled over the tip. 

That was it, the seal broken and Oswald let his jaw drop, mouth open as he drew in more air until he started panting in time with Jim’s hand. Fingertips nudging into that sweet spot with every stroke, thumb running over the top and giving him the slightest squeeze. 

His orgasm coiled into a tight little knot, Jim tugging it tighter each time.

The tremble began in his calves, running up the muscles of his thighs and no matter how hard he tried to push it back, he could feel it rising inside him - Jim felt it too, knew how inexorably close he’d driven him. His hand moved faster, a rolling, insistent sweep and Jim’s breath was fast and loud to match, Oswald could hear, could feel how Jim wanted this almost more than he did.

“Come on…” An order? A plea? 

Didn’t matter.

One suspended second of stillness, no breath, no sound, no awareness of anything other than that knot inside unspooling in a slow-motion explosion. 

Then a desperate gasp for air, release coming in a whole-body throb of satisfaction. Oswald opened his eyes, looked down to see him spilling out through Jim’s fingers, across his knuckles, grinning in near delirium at the sight as much as the feel of those strokes softening and slowing.

But as Oswald lifted his hands off the wall, Jim tightened his grip in a savage warning.

“Keep them where I can see them.”

Lacking the faculties to do anything else, Oswald obeyed.

There was no ceremony in the way Jim tucked him back into his boxers, damp and sticky, but then he brought his hand up to Oswald’s face, wet fingers pressing along the line of his jaw, so close Oswald could smell the warm, putty-ish scent of his own semen. But even as he wrinkled his nose in distaste, Jim was saying, “Open up.”

Oswald brows came down sharply. If Jim hadn’t been holding his chin in place, he’d have turned to look at him.

“What?” he hissed the question between thinned lips.

“Someone as sly as you could be concealing something behind your teeth.” Jim’s breathing was ragged. “Open your mouth.”

There was no move to force him. Jim simply held Oswald’s chin in his fingers. Waiting. Breathing.

This was too much. Except… 

“If I bite -”

“I stop.” Jim rubbed his nose against the hair behind Oswald’s ear, pressed his body closer and ground his hips against Oswald’s ass. “If you want me to.”

Oswald took a breath then, tentatively, opened his mouth for Jim to slide a finger up his chin and over his lower lip, gently pushing deeper into his mouth, past his teeth until the pad of his finger touched the tip of Oswald’s tongue. The sharp tang of skin, then the taste of himself. His tongue rose up to lick the print of Jim’s finger, lips closing round the knuckle.

“That’s it.” Jim’s voice was a smile in Oswald’s ear.

There was no pretence now, no nudge towards a fictional blade tucked behind his molars - instead, Oswald sucked at the finger in his mouth and Jim started rocking it slowly in and out.

“Another?”

He nodded, lapped at the second finger more eagerly than the first, not caring how utterly debauched this was, finding the humiliation too much of a turn on to resist. And Jim knew, started fucking Oswald’s face with his fingers, hard enough that Oswald had to open his mouth to breathe in, tongue working furiously to lap and swirl, cheeks hollowed as he sucked.

“Shit…” Jim whispered, his breathing as desperate as Oswald’s now. “You filthy little -”

The buzzer sounded, harsh and startling. When Jim said, “_Shit_” this time, it wasn’t with quite the same reverence. He pulled his hand free from Oswald’s mouth, the whole game dissolving in one panicked instant, Oswald finally taking his hands from the wall, swiping one across his mouth and feeling the prickle of blood returning to places he’d not noticed it was missing. He tugged his pants up, fastening them with the clip, not bothering with the belt or the zipper. Now was a time for speed, not dignity.

“Who is it?” Jim called out, casting a despairing glance at the arsenal of weapons scattered across the floor.

“It’s me, Harvey. You know, the guy you were supposed to be meeting down at the station half an hour ago?”

Oswald shot Jim a contemptuous look, but the detective shrugged a genuinely clueless, “What?” before raising his voice, “We’re not supposed to be working today!” and doubling over to help Oswald gather up the knives and the gun.

“Leave it,” Oswald whispered and directed a pointed glare at Jim’s outfit, “Don’t you think Harvey might wonder why you’re in uniform?”

Harvey was knocking on the door now. “We’re always working. Come on, man, don’t make me wait out here when I’m holding you’re goddamn coffee and half a filing cabinet of reports.”

“Just a minute!” Jim frantically started tearing his clothes off and Oswald felt a surge of irritation that this would be the way he saw Jim’s body the first time - in a hasty, pragmatic striptease and not something done with purpose or measure that Oswald could actually appreciate. Although… a well-muscled torso was a well-muscled torso.

“Here.” Jim thrust his clothes into Oswald’s arms and directed a look back to the wall that led to the bedroom, giving Oswald a sheepish twitch of a smile. “See you in there?”

But Oswald wasn’t in the mood for flirting.

“Get rid of your partner before I get bored of skulking in the shadows like a dirty little secret.”

As he made to shove past, Jim ducked in close enough to mutter, “You are my dirty little secret.” Before giving him a purposeful shove towards the bedroom as Harvey hammered harder on the front door.

Not sure whether he wanted the title just bestowed upon him, and unconvinced by Jim’s ability to hide any of this from his partner, Oswald tipped the load in his arms out onto the bed as quietly as possible. Hands freed, he set about righting himself, adjusting his underwear, hating the way the material clung to him now it was wet. He’d spent too much time soaked and desperate and covered in the slime of the city to tolerate such discomforts when they were forced upon him like this. He tucked his shirt in, did his pants up properly and re-distributed his weapons, fast, methodical, habitual, before pulling his jacket back on. A burst of movement behind him and Oswald spun round to see Jim.

“At least let me put some clothes on before you start with all the cop talk!” he was calling back into the room beyond. “There’s day-old croissants in the fridge.”

The fridge? Oswald’s disgust was too strong to hide and Jim smiled as he stepped into the suit pants hanging over the end of the bed. Neither said anything more, but Jim kept his eyes on Oswald the whole time and Oswald felt an echo of heat in his cheeks. Those eyes, a blue that seemed to get deeper the longer he looked.

Jim stood, took a tie from the nightstand and twitched his eyebrows as he left to go back out.

OK. None of this was good.

The point of getting Jim Gordon reinstated as a detective wasn’t to hand him this kind of power. One that heated his blood to an uncomfortable simmer that had him sweating beneath his shirt, cheeks so hot that it had spread to his ears. Oswald lifted the gun from his pocket and pressed the cool metal against one ear, then the other. 

“Stop this,” Oswald whispered. 

Needing some way of gaining the upper hand, he set about studying the room. This was where Jim slept, the place he was most vulnerable. There would be things here worth learning. The room was snug - room enough for a cupboard and drawers, an armchair and an ill-made bed, although at least there was bedding there to be made. When Butch moved in Oswald had been horrified at the state of his room… what kind of animal slept without a duvet cover?

Moving silently to the nightstand, Oswald inspected the magazines on the top, slid the drawer open and counted the supplies. Bullets and condoms. How very _Jim_.

No lube, though. Easily rectified.

The lower drawers were mostly junk. A watch with a cracked face, loose change, pens and notebooks. He picked one up, skimmed the pages and committed anything of interest to memory. There were names in here, Oswald’s appeared pretty early on - lines darting to various other names and lots of question marks. Some jokes and riddles that Jim had clearly heard somewhere else and wasn’t yet willing to forget. The next notebook had different names, ones connected to the Wayne murder.

“Boring.” Oswald rolled his eyes. Not everything was a conspiracy. Sometimes people got mugged because they looked like they were worth it. The third notebook wasn’t yet finished. More names, like Loeb and the Mayor… that new guy, Galavan, a name whispered loud enough that Oswald had heard of him weeks ago. Unfinished thoughts of someone used to running on instinct because they never had time to think.

_That_ was being generous. 

They were still talking out there and Oswald stole round the room, checked under the bed, opened the wardrobe, did all the things he would hate for anyone to do to him, extracting Jim’s secrets through stealth. By the time he’d done a circuit he knew Jim’s shoe size, where he bought his suits and shirts, what measurements he favoured, the brand of boxer shorts he wore. He knew his taste in reading material - his preferred porn was interesting, or rather, quite the opposite, but what people fantasised about wasn’t the same as what they did. He found where Jim kept his birth certificate, a roll of banknotes and a well-oiled revolver that definitely wasn’t police issue. He unpicked a brief history of his relationships from the faded photos and letters he’d found in a shoebox behind the overnight bag slumped at the bottom of his cupboard.

All while the two detectives talked next door.

Bored and tired, Oswald settled in the armchair in the corner of the room.

xxx

Oswald woke not to any sound, or light, but to the sensation of being hoisted bodily from slumber by someone with the strength of a bear. For one groggy moment, he wondered why Butch had chosen to wake him like this before he focused on the face in front of him.

Not Butch.

Jim Gordon. Both hands bunched tightly in the lapels of his suit. God. Oswald hoped he’d _washed_ them.

“What the hell have you done?” Jim yelled so loud he flinched. 

“I don’t -” His eyes darted round the room - he’d been very careful to leave everything exactly as he found it. Precaution came as a habit.

“You set a fire in a nightclub, burn down half the goddamn neighbourhood and I find out about it _now_?”

“What fire?” Too much, Jim’s eyes narrowed and he actually shook Oswald like a dog with a rat. “Oh, yes of course. The one that made the news last night, which you clearly missed and somehow blame me for.”

“I don’t blame you for missing the news, I blame you for starting the fire.”

Oswald shook his head. “I don’t start fires.”

He got someone else to start them for him.

“You must think I’m stupid -”

“Well…” Oswald said, tipping his head and getting an extra little shake for the trouble.

“- I’ve just been going through the fire marshal’s report, checked it against the finances of the building. Old-fashioned detective work that leads me to you.”

“And where did it lead your partner?” Oswald hissed, looking to the door, knowing already there was no one beyond.

Jim’s grip loosened, eyes darting away as he stepped back and let Oswald go. “Harvey’s following up some leads on where we might find you.”

“What?” Oswald tugged his suit jacket straight and smoothed his hands over the material of his shirt to steady them. “You mean you didn’t just point at your bedroom door and tell him exactly where I went after he interrupted our little session.”

This time when Jim looked at him the anger was tempered by disgust. A look that had Oswald sliding a hand into his pocket, fingers finding the rings of his knuckle duster. He could make Jim pay for that look.

“Interrupted makes it sound like you think there’s more to come,” Jim said.

“Maybe there is.” Oswald’s focus sharpened to a point. “But I don’t think now’s the time.”

A gamble that was worth it for seeing Jim press his lips together a second, a thwarted twitch of his eyebrow. Tiny tells that suggested this wasn’t the way Jim had expected this to go. Time to go, while he had something that could be considered the upper hand. If you squinted a little.

“Well. If that’s everything…” He flicked a couple of buttons closed on his jacket. Felt for his phone as he stepped forward to get past Jim and out of the door.

“You’re not going anywhere.” Jim’s palm fell flat and heavy on Oswald’s sternum, the pressure firm enough to stop him in his tracks. “Unless it’s down to the station for questioning.”

The two of them locked eyes for a long, torturous moment. Was Jim thinking of what they’d been doing, of the way it felt to have his fingers in Oswald’s mouth, the sound he made when he came? Did he want to know what it would feel like if Oswald wrapped his lips around a different part of his body, if _he_ was the one pushed over the edge this time…

Oswald’s lower lip slipped beneath his teeth in a smile that spoke of secrets Jim wasn’t ready to discover.

The click of a cocked gun and the nudge of a small steel barrel pushed Jim’s chin up.

“I shall not be going to the station, Detective Gordon. I shall be walking out of your apartment and going wherever I please.” He pressed the barrel into Jim’s jaw a little harder, rewarded by a wince disguised as a blink.

“I’ll come for you,” Jim hissed as Oswald slipped past, gun steadily aimed at the side of Jim’s head. At the door, Oswald turned and smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “You will.”


End file.
